PC1170 is the blog of Pat Campbell morning host at 1170 KFAQ in Tulsa, OK.

Monday, September 15, 2008

Anatomy of a Loss

Excellent read!

The Audacity of DefeatRuss Smith

What if the impossible happens and Obama loses the election? Among Democrats, expect a rash of rage, depression, angst and finger-pointing at the media.

It’s three a.m. on Oct. 31 and a frantic broker awakens you. He’s advising making substantial investments that day in the stocks of Lilly, Pfizer and other manufacturers of anti-depressants, as well as high-end booze, say Grey Goose vodka and Hillary Clinton’s whiskey of choice, Chivas Regal. The calculations buzzing through your head are not insignificant. Barack Obama holds a two-point lead over John McCain in the Gallup poll for the Nov. 4 presidential election, and that slender margin suggests—given the undeniable factor of racism when Americans retreat to the privacy of the ballot booth—that for the third straight time a Democratic candidate will be defeated. Your own preference in the contest is irrelevant: there’s money lying on the table and only a fool would ignore the market’s indications.

A month ago, as any honest Democrat will tell you, this scenario was nearly inconceivable. The Republicans had nominated an elderly and inarticulate candidate in McCain, who was marred not only by his association with George Bush, but distrusted by the critical conservative base as well. He was expected to choose an equally dull running mate—maybe Gov. Tim Pawlenty (who?), the robotic Mitt Romney, or even Sen. Joe Lieberman, the onetime Democrat who’s distrusted by both parties—and though Obama had tapped longtime Sen. Joe Biden, whose bouts with sometimes indelicate verbosity were well-known, that was of little concern. Obama’s campaign was a fund-raising juggernaut and the candidate promised to campaign in nearly every state, especially “red” ones, not only demonstrate to he’d be a president of “all the people” but also help Congressional Democrats expand their majorities. It was payback time for the “stolen” elections of 2000 and 2004 and the revenge promised to be rich indeed.

I was reasonably certain that Obama would win convincingly, and perhaps by a landslide. In fact, although favoring McCain, I’d resigned myself to at least four years of the charismatic Illinois one-term senator, despite the nervousness that he’d turn out to be a less pious Jimmy Carter or, a latter-day Adlai Stevenson. What the hell, it’s not as if the Republicans have distinguished themselves in the past four years, McCain included. Besides, one benefit of a turnover at the White House would be the resumption of political conversation with Democratic friends; too many personal and professional relationships have been fractured in the past eight years. Read the rest HERE.

When Obama wakes up on 11/5/08 and realizes he blew it he will have no one to blame but himself. It was his to lose. Had he picked Hillary he would have been unstoppable, but pride got in the way, he bought into his own messianic hype.

3 Comments:

I reregistered from Republican to Non-Partison in Florida the day after McCain stole the primaries in FL. I was beginning to lean voting for him to save the Country from Obama. Today McCain was in Orlando, at a rally with Mel Martinez, hispandering again... Mel spoke to the cheering crowd primarily in spanish, and McCain blamed the Democrats for stopping the passage of his immigration bill and praised the supporters of his bill, ie: Lindsey Graham.. I can't pull the leaver for McCain.... Yes, I remember well being called a racist and a bigot by Lindsey Graham... It appears even Bud Hedinger has thrown his values out with the bath water, now that Sarah Palin is the VP candidate. I still have heard nothing on Palin's views on illegal immigration, other than she was governor of the State of Alaska, with two major santuary cities, Ankorage and Fairbanks AK. That tells me something... I was healing and considering voting for McCain, but he tore the scabs open today in Orlando. I WILL NOT SUPPORT THE REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE THIS YEAR, but will vote Republican for Congress, only because Martinez is not up for relection. McCain can't be trusted at all. I no longer listen to Bud Hedinger, so your welcome to return to Orlando for the 3:00 PM to 6:00 PM spot, PC. I have switched to 98.9 FM. Bud's gone stale.

Does anybody else but me, think it's odd that Obama was named after Mohammed's winged horse "Burak" that took Mohammed to heaven? Why would someone name their kid after a Muslim prophet's horse, if they were a Christian? Maybe because his ears look like the wings on "Burak" the horse?

The Democrat Party has become the Lawyers' Party. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are lawyers. Bill Clinton and Michelle Obama are lawyers. John Edwards, the other former Democrat candidate for president, is a lawyer, and so is his wife, Elizabeth. Every Democrat nominee since 1984 went to law school (although Gore did not graduate). Every Democrat vice presidential nominee since 1976, except for Lloyd Bentsen, went to law school. Look at the Democrat Party in Congress: the Majority Leader in each house is a lawyer.

The Republican Party is different. President Bush and Vice President Cheney were not lawyers, but businessmen. The leaders of the Republican Revolution were not lawyers. Newt Gingrich was a history professor; Tom Delay was an exterminator; and, Dick Armey was an economist. House Minority Leader Boehner was a plastic manufacturer, not a lawyer. The former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is a heart surgeon.

Who was the last Republican president who was a lawyer? Gerald Ford, who left office 31 years ago and who barely won the Republican nomination as a sitting president, running against Ronald Reagan in 1976. The Republican Party is made up of real people doing real work. The Democrat Party is made up of lawyers. Democrats mock and scorn men who create wealth, like Bush and Cheney, or who heal the sick, like Frist, or who immerse themselves in history, like Gingrich.

The Lawyers' Party sees these sorts of people, who provide goods and services that people want, as the enemies of America. And, so we have seen the procession of official enemies, in the eyes of the Lawyers' Party, grow.

This is the natural consequence of viewing everything through the eyes of lawyers . Lawyers solve problems by successfully representing their clients, in this case the American people. Lawyers seek to have new laws passed, they seek to win lawsuits, they press appellate courts to overturn precedent, and lawyers always, always parse language to favor their side.

Confined to the narrow practice of law, that is fine. But it is an awful way to govern a great nation. When politicians as lawyers begin to view some Americans as clients and other Americans as opposing parties, then the role of the legal system in our life becomes all-consuming. Some Americans become 'adverse parties' of our very government. We are not all litigants in some vast social class-action suit. We are citizens of a republic that promises us a great deal of freedom from laws, from courts, and from lawyers. No wonder there is a feeling of polarization in the country today.

Today, we are drowning in laws; we are contorted by judicial decisions; we are driven to distraction by omnipresent lawyers in all parts of our once private lives. America has a place for laws and lawyers, but that place is modest and reasonable, not vast and unchecked. When the most important decision for our next president is whom he will appoint to the Supreme Court, the role of lawyers and the law in America is too big. When lawyers use criminal prosecution as a continuation of politics by other means, as happened in the "lynching" of Scooter Libby and Tom Delay, then the power of lawyers in America is too great. When House Democrats sue America in order to hamstring our efforts to learn what our enemies are planning to do to us, then the role of litigation in America has become crushing.

We cannot expect the Lawyers' Party to provide real change, real reform, or real hope in America .... Most Americans know that a republic in which every major government action must be blessed by nine unelected judges is not what Washington intended in 1789. Most Americans grasp that we cannot fight a war when ACLU lawsuits snap at the heels of our defenders. Most Americans intuit that more lawyers and judges will not restore declining moral values or spark the spirit of enterprise in our economy.

Perhaps Americans will understand that change cannot be brought to our nation by those lawyers who already largely dictate American society and business. Perhaps Americans will see that hope does not come from the mouths of lawyers but from personal dreams nourished by hard work. Perhaps Americans will embrace the truth that more lawyers with more power will only make our problems worse.

So vote for the Democrat this election John McCain, and let's show the lawyers we are fed up with lawyers, and they won't take over our country. Vote Republican for Congress, since we don't have a Presidential candidate running this year. Change we can believe in...